Abstract
THIS recent addition to the already numerous works on Czechoslovakia attempts to combine a general account of the country with guide-book details intended to help the tourist. Too much space is wasted by such statements as “life in provincial towns is naturally quieter than in the capital … it need not, however, be dull”. A chapter is devoted to education, science, religion and art, fourteen pages being given to science. The influence of the exiled Komensky (Comenius) on the formation of the Royal Society in England and on contemporary American thought is recalled; the Czech origin of Purkyne and Mendel is naturally recorded, and many of the leading names of the present day and the last century are mentioned. But the information concerning their contributions to knowledge is too casually expressed to have much value. Thus one man of science has “added greatly to our knowledge of the useful and harmful bacteria”; another's special study “will eventually prove of value both to industry and to science itself”, whilst a third “made many contributions to technological methods”. Apart from the Frenchman Barrande, the only geologist selected for mention is Slavik. The volume has an excellent map prepared by the military cartographical institute of Prague.
In the Heart of Europe:
Life in Czechoslovakia. By Dr. Gerald Druce. Pp. 228 + 30 plates. (London: George Alien and Unwin, Ltd., 1936.) 6s. net.
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S., L. In the Heart of Europe. Nature 137, 1015 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1371015c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1371015c0